Old Battlefield

Old Battlefield is a random encounter in Tales from the Tiers.

Transcript
Sunlight struggles to punch through the thick brown clouds, casting long shadows from the jutting spars of warped bronze and iron that mark the Blade Grave. In the hazy distance, you can just make out the squared form of Iron Hearth squatting high on the mountainside. You see the gray smear of smoke against the sky before you reach the fissure. From the lip of the broad gully, you see a handful of what at first glance appear to be bonfires, but from the blackened, skeletal limbs protruding from them, you guess that they burn on a fuel of human fat. The flames mark only a few of the bodies, however; dozens of corpses, perhaps more than a full hundred, carpet the land below you. Investigate further. Find another route. The sickly-sweet stench of carrion assaults you as you pick your way into the crevasse. From above, the bodies seemed a jumbled motley with no discernible heraldry. You realize why as you make your way among the bodies: many wear only ratty leathers, only crimson sashes or face paint marking them as conscripts of the Scarlet Chorus. For every ten to twenty members of the horde, you locate a brutalized Disfavored legionnaire, their armor rent in a dozen places, their wounds enough to kill each ten times over. You leave the road in favor of a cleaner route, leaving the corpses to rot behind you. "Merciful Kyros," Barik mutters, kneeling by one of the corpses. He touches one's forehead. "Teluria. I almost cannot recognize you, sister." He looks to you. "Archon. These soldiers died in service to the Overlord. They deserve better than to be left to the elements." It seems that the Disfavored and Scarlet Chorus met in battle here. You suspect that if there were survivors, they belonged to the Chorus. The Disfavored would not have left their fellows to rot beneath the open sky. Verse snorts. "You planning on burying them all, big boy? Horde and Furies included?" "Don't be ridiculous," the Stone Shield answers. "Everyone here died sworn to Kyros, right?" She crosses her arms. "If one deserves burial, don't they all?" Bury the Disfavored. Bury the Chorus. Bury both. Scavenge the battlefield. Leave. You decide only to bury the Disfavored. The work doesn't take too long, and when you finish, the earth boasts a dozen small grave markers, each topped with an iron helm. The Chorus corpses you stack to the side like logs. Scavengers, you reason, will take care of the rest. You decide only to bury the Chorus conscripts. It's long, hard work, but you clear a deep mass grave and fill it with hundreds of corpses. You prop up a few tattered crimson standards to mark the mound. The heavy Disfavored corpses you move only so much as you need to complete your grim work. It takes hours, but you manage to dig a pair of mass graves, one for each of the two forces. Sweaty, filthy, and sick with the smell of your enterprise, you mark each mound with a set of standards. You leave the valley of the dead, your back aching but your resolve bolstered. You move among the corpses like a phantom, alighting briefly on each to check hands for rings, scabbards for blades, suits of armor for pieces that have not been entirely wrecked, and, of course, belts for rings. Your packs notably heavier, you leave the corpses behind in favor of your destination. Deciding that there exists nothing here for you, you climb the far side of the gully and continue towards your destination. Continue... Continue... Continue... Continue...